Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[LincolnToddFan]

(05-25-2014 03:29 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  I would like to add one quote - also to ask if someone knows the original source (I quote from W.E.Reck's "...His Last 24 Hours"):

"We must both, be more cheerful in the future - between the war and the loss of our darling Willie - we have both, been very miserable...Mary, we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington, but the war is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happyness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet..."

Is it likely that he talked in that manner about future plans, together, after almost 24 years of marriage, with a spouse he would have liked to escape from?

Eva E,
This is a good point and one that is rarely considered by pro-Herndon authors. AL was a very sensitive and aware man. He knew the toll that 4 years of war and WH life had taken on Mary and their marriage. According to a letter MTL wrote to her friend Mary Jane Welles a few weeks after the tragedy, Lincoln wrote his wife a playful, romantic note on Wednesday, Apr 12 inviting his wife to take a carriage ride alone together on Friday April 14th. Along with Reconstruction I have always felt that in the back of his mind he was making plans to reach out to his troubled wife and try to "fix" their relationship...get back some of the stability they had known in their Springfield years. One of the last acts of his life before Booth's bullet smashed into his skull was to reach for her hand.

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(05-25-2014 04:18 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  

(05-25-2014 03:29 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Nevertheless (that this might be not a proven fact) I would like to add one quote - also to ask if someone knows the original source (I quote from W.E.Reck's "...His Last 24 Hours"):

"We must both, be more cheerful in the future - between the war and the loss of our darling Willie - we have both, been very miserable...Mary, we have had a hard time of it since we came to Washington, but the war is over, and with God's blessing we may hope for four years of peace and happyness, and then we will go back to Illinois and pass the rest of our lives in quiet..."

Eva, I could not find the (entire) exact quote, but part of it comes from what Mary wrote to Francis Carpenter on November 15, 1865. Do you have the Turners' book? If so, please see the very bottom of p. 284 and top of p. 285. Also, it looks like part of the quote came from Isaac Arnold. That part is on pp. 429-430 of Isaac Arnold's The Life of Abraham Lincoln, and he gives his source as a personal conversation he had with Mary Lincoln. So, at this point, I am thinking that when authors quote from this conversation they are combining at least two sources.

Hi Roger-

As promised I have been digging to find a source for my comment the other day about AL discussing a romantic attachment to Mary Owens even while Ann Rutledge was still alive. In Ch.IV of the book "Legends That Libel Lincoln" (1946, Montgomery Lewis) the author has AL saying, in 1833 after MO left New Salem, that "if ever that girl comes back to New Salem I am going to marry her" and in the footnotes the author gives the source of the statement as the Beveridge bio of AL that came out in the late 19th century. He also mentions a long and "boyish" letter AL wrote in 1838 after Ann's death to Mrs. Orville Browning, where he discusses his earlier romance with Owens.

But I am still trying to find yet another letter or comment he made to Owen's sister while Ann was yet alive where he discusses his interest in Owens. I'll get back to you on this!